And so the young conductor banned virtually all encores, ensuring more unified performances but depriving star singers of additional moments to shine. (He was once challenged to a duel for his trouble.) He insisted that the musicians who played in the rehearsals be the same ones who played the actual performances, and they were paid accordingly. “Toscanini decided that the status quo was not good enough,” Sachs writes.

All data collected using this site for commercially published use should be confirmed and verified by contacting the New York Philharmonic Archives, Barbara Haws, Archivist and Historian. The New York Philharmonic is not responsible for the unauthorized use of any

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.

For rendering so vivid an account of a life so crowded with achievement, Harvey Sachs—a conscientious biographer—deserves a hearty bravo .

"You never are in any doubt about what this piece is about," says music historian Barbara Heyman. "There's a kind of sadness and poetry about it. It has a melodic gesture that reaches an arch, like a big sigh... and then exhales and fades off into nothingness."

Toscanini returned to the United States where the NBC Symphony Orchestra was created for him in 1937. He conducted his first NBC broadcast concert on December 25, 1937, in NBC Studio 8-H in New York City's Rockefeller Center . [16] The acoustics of the specially built studio were very dry; some remodeling in 1942 for Leopold Stokowski added a bit more reverberation. (In 1950, 8-H was converted into a television studio. It has been home to NBC's Saturday Night Live since 1975. In 1980, Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic began a series of special televised NBC concerts called Live From Studio 8H , the first one being a tribute to Toscanini, punctuated by clips from his television concerts.) [17]